Economic Policy Review Executive Summary
Precarious Slopes? The Great Recession, Federal Stimulus, and New Jersey Schools
Recapping an article from the December 2013 issue of
Contact authors
E-mail authors
the Economic Policy Review, Volume 19, Number 2 View full article PDF

 

25 pages / 1,138 kb

Authors: Rajashri Chakrabarti and Sarah Sutherland

Disclaimer
Index of executive summaries
  • The Great Recession was marked by a downturn in housing prices, employment, and business activity, each of which led to reduced tax revenues and larger budget gaps.

  • These shortfalls impacted the ability of state and local governments to fully fund schools.

  • Chakrabarti and Sutherland investigate the downturn’s effect on New Jersey school finances, finding strong evidence of downward shifts in total school funding and expenditures, relative to trend.

  • The authors find that budgetary stress likely led to sizable layoffs of nontenured teachers; they also observe that high-poverty and urban school districts sustained larger resource declines than more affluent and less populated districts did.

  • However, support of more than $2 billion from federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding limited damage to New Jersey’s budget; importantly, it helped preserve funding levels closely associated with student instruction.

  • The study offers valuable insight into how school districts fare during downturns and serves as a useful guide for future policy decisions.


About the Authors

Rajashri Chakrabarti is an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Sarah Sutherland is a research associate at the Bank.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this summary are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System.

By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Statement. You can learn more about how we use cookies by reviewing our Privacy Statement.   Close